Picture Perfect Wednesday with Zheng Shuang

Chinese actress Zheng Shuang has brought down the ire of the totalitarian "Communist" government of her nation for, as far as I can tell, being too popular. They've come down on her harder than they did on those infected with a virus that didn't even infect humans in Wuhan, with trumped up scandals and tax evasion charges. They've also literally cancelled her by banning a television series she's in from state-run television and commanded producers to no longer hire her for their films and movies.

So, it seems like a perfect time to feature some pictures of her here on Shades of Gray while reminding everyone of the Unifying Theme.

Still relevant, sixty years later

The Fat and the Thin (1961)
Starring: Roman Polanski and André Katelbach
Director: Roman Polanski
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

A scrawny slave (Polanski) labors to keep his slovenly, obese master (Katelbach) happy... until one day, he decides to escape to the promise of a better life in the city. His master, however, has a plan to keep him obedient and trapped...

Great works of art continue to feel relevant decades and centuries after they were made. The relevancy may or may not relate to the circumstances under which the work was created, nor the message the creator was trying to convey, but the fact that it speaks loudly to future generations and continues to feel fresh is the hallmark of an artistic masterpiece.

"The Fat and the Thin", one of the first works Roman Polanski completed after leaving his homeland of Poland for France. Sixty years after its release, this feels like it could have been made yesterday. The events of this absurdist silent comedy can be taken as an allegory for several different social conditions, most of which originate with power structures and how they can be abused. (One can even see the film as a statement about commercial 

As with all short films from the dawn of Polanski's career, "The Fat and the Thin" is a silent movie, and one so well-executed that no dialog would even be needed if it wasn't, nor were any intertitles required. Everything the audience needs to know is communicated by the actions of the characters on the screen. The only problem with this film is that it drags a little close to the halfway mark. I understand that Polanski was trying to drive home the sense of drudgery and boredom that slave felt, but he was perhaps just a little too effective... or maybe not effective enough. Regardless, the film could have benefitted from some trimming in the middle. 

 But why don't you take a look at the film for yourself by clicking below? Watching this true classic from one of the 20th century's best filmmakers is well worth it; maybe you can even leave a comment below with a few words about whether or not you think "The Fat and the Thin" still has relevance today, and why.

Musical Monday with Leo Moracchioli

 It's been a while since we last visited with the great Leo Moracchioli... but his cover of "In the Air Tonight" reminds us that we really should bring him around more often!

Bones Coffee: Sinn-O-Bun Blend

It's time for another coffee review--because the world has been waiting with bated breath to learn how I'm feeding my caffeine addiction!

Drink Coffee! It's Fashionable!

BONES COFFEE COMPANY: SINN-O-BUN

Sinn-O-Bun is another one of the many 4-oz. sampler packs I ordered with making this series of posts while feeding my caffeine addiction in mind. The gimmicky name and skeleton-themed drawing on the packaging.

The ground coffee had cinnamon bun aroma I would expect from the name, and a similar pleasing smell was evident as the coffee brewed. It was off to the promising start of other Bones Coffee releases I've tried. In the end, though, this turned out to be my This is my least favorite of their blends so far.

The blend basically does what the name brings to mind: If you dip a cinnamon roll in coffee and take a bite, that's what a hot cup of this coffee tastes like. Adding some milk (or in my case, almond milk) to your cup brings out the flavor even stronger. Unfortunately, the taste is as if you were dipping a stale cinnamon roll rather than a fresh one. That puts damper on the experience.

Unsurprisingly, this sweet-tasting blend works well iced, especially with a bit of almond milk added. Curiously, there seems to be a salty aftertaste that isn't there when you drink it hot, and it gets stronger as you sip the coffee. For this reason, you want to consume iced Sinn-O-Bun in small doses. (I thought that maybe I'd mixed up blends, or had not rinsed or washed the pot and cup properly between review samplings, and that I wasn't drinking Sinn-O-Bun at all or had perhaps "tainted" the brew somehow... but a second brewing brought the same shift in flavor between the hot and cold coffee. I don't think I've ever encountered something like this before--although the enhanced bacon flavor when drinking the Maple Bacon blend is similar, I suppose.)

Sinn-O-Bun is probably my least favorite of the Bones Coffee Company blends I've had so far; it's not one I'm likely to try again. That said, if you like cinnamon in general and cinnamon buns in particular, I think you'll enjoy it... just be sure you drink it hot. (I am giving a 4-oz. sample pack to a friend who's CRAZY about cinnamon to get her opinion on the Sinn-O-Bun blend. If she has anything to say that changes my recommendation, I'll provide an update in a future post.)

The Avengers Dossier, Page Seventeen

Here's a look at one of the many talented guest-stars who appeared in episodes of "The Avengers".

LIZ FRASER

In "The Girl From Auntie", Liz Fraser is Georgie Price-Jones, an actress hired by a shadowy organization to pretend to be Mrs. Peel. 

Born in 1930, Liz Fraser began her acting career as part of a touring theatre company in the early 1950s. In 1955, she was part of history when she appeared in commercial television's first live play, "The Geranium" on ITV. From that point forward, most of her work-life was split between the television screen and the big screen.

Fraser's early career was spent mostly playing blondes busty blondes with low IQs. She is best remembered for her roles in the entries in the "Carry On...", "Adventures of..." and "Confessions of..." comedy film series during the 1960s and 1970s. In 1970, she was also regularly spotted as one of the sexy ladies who would either chase, or be chased by, the star of "The Benny Hill Show."

As the 1970s drew to a close, Fraser made a hard push to leave the ditzy blonde she had been typecast as behind, and, her skills as a dramatic actress finally came to be appreciated. Throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, she balanced dramatic character roles with comedic parts, primarily on television but also increasingly on stage.

By the early 1990s, investments in stocks and rental properties had led to Fraser being financially comfortable to the point where she became very selective in the roles she accepted, and by 2000, she had all but retired from acting and public life. She continued to act, however, with her final role being in an episode of the long-running police procedural television series "Midsomer Murders".

Fraser passed away in 2018 at the age of 88.

Felix turns babysitter with predictable results

Felix Minds the Kid (1922)
Director: Otto Messinger
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

The world's most irresponsible father asks Felix the Cat to watch his baby.

"Felix Minds the Kid" is a fun bit of nonsense from beginning to end. It gets a little too nonsensical at one point for me, but not disastrously so. It's also one of those shorts where if I say too much about it, I will ruin the fun of watching it. I'll just make the comment that anyone who asks a stray cat (even one that can talk and use tools) may be the worst parent ever. It's both funny and troubling. 

One nice thing about this cartoon is that while Felix generally tends to be a bit of a trickster and a troublemaker and almost 100 percent self-centered, here he does seem to be genuinely concerned about the baby's well-being. Sure--he's going to get rewarded or punished depending on how successful his babysitting efforts are, but he goes beyond the call of duty more than once here. 

Without spoiling the cartoon, I think I can mention that one of my favorite bits in the cartoon is how all human babies look alike to Felix; sort of like how a litter of black kittens look alike to humans. My least favorite parts involve gags that make me think no one who worked on this production know why some inflated balloons float in the air.

With that said, I highly recommend you bring a little joy into your life by checking out Felix's turn at baby sitting. I am embedding a version of it that can be found on YouTube, below. However, the image is so degraded, washed out and blurry that you'll barely be able to follow what's going. This is the case for all the YouTube uploads I looked at... because they all seem to be taken from the same source.

A much better source for watching "Felix Minds the Kid" would be "Felix the Cat: Early Cartoon Classics" from Alpha Video. The version on this disc is in much better shape than the one you might find on YouTube, and it's one of ten Felix episodes contained on it. So far, each one that I've watched on the disc has been in better shape than any of the versions I could find on line, since they were digitized from the personal collection of film preservationist John Carpenter. I think this collection is more than a bargain at the asking price 

  

Roman Wives #3: Emmanuelle Seigner

 Emmanuelle Seigner was born in Paris in 1966, the daughter of a journalist and an internationally renowned photographer. She began modeling at the age of 14, landed her first film roles soon afterwards.

By the age of 20, Seigner was beginning to climb the ladder to international stardom, having appeared in a few French dramas and playing teenaged characters younger than her actual age.

In 1988, she was cast opposite Harrison Ford in the Roman Polanski-directed thriller "Frantic", and it was while working on this film that the two fell in love. Within a year, they were married--despite Polanski being 33 years her senior. (Once again, Polanski was robbing the cradle...)

While Seinger has maintained a thriving film career separate from her husband, the pair's relationship has been fruitful on both the romantic and professional front. Seinger starred in some of Polanski's most successful and/or acclaimed films--such as "Venus in Furs" (2013), "The Ninth Gate" (1999), "Bitter Moon" (1992), and the aforementioned "Frantic" (1988).

The couple have been together almost 33 years now--their wedding anniversary is on August 30--and they have two, now-grown, children together. By all accounts, they remain as in love with each other as they were when the first met. Seigner recently demonstrated her fierce loyalty to  her husband when she publicly condemned the Academy of Motion Picture Arts as hypocrites when they expelled Polanski as a member in 2018 while they band-wagonned with the "#MeToo" movement. (She also very publicly turned down their invitation to join the organization.)

Seigner and Polanski make their home in France, out of reach of U.S. law enforcement who still seek to imprison him because of his rape conviction. Seigner acknowledges that Polanski was found guilty of drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl, but she says that, to her, he has always been a wonderful husband and a great father to their children.

This post was part of the Shades of Gray Roman Polanski Month.

'Mammals' is Polanski's tribute to by-gone era

Mammals (1962)
Starring: Henryk Kluba, Michal Zolnierkiewicza, and Voytek Frykowski
Director: Roman Polanski
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Two weirdos (Kluba and Zolnierkiewicza) take turns pulling each other on a sled across a frozen wasteland... until fatigue sets in and tempers start to flare.

"Mammals" was Roman Polanski's final short film before his career as a professional writer/director launched in earnest. Like all his shorts, it is a silent movie, as Polanski reportedly believed that dialogue would distract from important story points in a short film. Unlike the previous ones, this one is a straight-up homage to the comedy shorts of the 1910s and 1920s, with weird characters engaging in even weirder antics for inscrutable reasons.

There really isn't much of a plot here--the film is a string of loosely connected gags, some of which play amusingly with the white-out effect created by filming in black-and-white on a sunlit snowfield--but, like its main characters, the film is constantly in motion and there's not a dull second during its 10-minute running time. As a pastiche/homage to early film comedies, it's excellent... as a short film, I wish there had been a bit more of a through-line to tie the action together.

My desire for a little more story mixed in with the absurdity aside, "Mammals" is another clear demonstration of Polanski's raw talent for filmmaking, one which he would hone to unquestionable greatness as the decades progressed. (It's too bad he seems to be a terrible human being.)

Take a look at "Mammals" by clicking below. Feel free to let me and world know your take on it in the comments section.

Musical Monday with The Kooks

The Kooks are a British indie rock band who's been around since ca. 2004, with Luke Pritchard and Hugh Harris being the group's lead performers, and only remaining founding members. Pritchard is also the primary lyricist and composer for all the band's songs.

Today's offering is a song and an amusing and sexy video in support of their 2014 album "Listen".

Interestingly, there was a Swedish band that also went by the name of The Kooks and also played indie rock. They broke up in 2002, however, so that could be why no one's gotten sued? 

Bones Coffee's French Vanilla

It's time for another review of a flavored coffee blend. This time, I'm trying their version of a classic -- French Vanilla.

It's a French Hottie with French Vanilla Coffee!

BONES COFFEE COMPANY: FRENCH VANILLA

French Vanilla is a go-to flavor around here; it's a rare and unhappy day that there isn't a bottle of sugar-free French Vanilla creamer in the fridge. Since coffee with some stripe and degree of vanilla flavor added is my go-to, ordering the Bones Coffee French Vanilla blend was a no-brainer. I've tried similar blends from other companies and they've ranged from "that wasn't just a straight medium roast?" to "meh... there was some vanilla there, but what's with the stale taste when I literally just made it?". 

The only blend French Vanilla blend I recall being any good was the one from Seattle's Best Coffee, but I'm assuming its long gone, having been absorbed with its maker into Starbucks and the land of bitter-tasting coffee. So... how did the Bones French Vanilla blend stack up to my memory of a coffee from over a decade ago?

Quite nicely, in fact. 

This review is based on a 4-oz. pre-ground beans, and the coffee was brewed in a drip coffeemaker. This blend has as its basis medium-roasted beans, which I imagine surprises no one reading this. 

As the coffee brewed, I didn't notice anything other than the aroma of coffee coming from the pot, and it wasn't anything beyond what I usually experience or expect--there was no scent of vanilla wafting down the hall into my office as has happened with some previous Bones products (like the Jingle Bells blend, for example). Once poured into my mug, however, I noticed a very vanilla aroma--and when I took a few sips, the coffee was very smooth and the vanilla taste was pleasing and noticeable. If you're the sort of person who likes your coffee black with perhaps just a little sugar or milk in it, I think you wouldn't mind starting your day or ending your dinner with a cut of this. As for myself, I could have continued drinking it straight, but it became far more enjoyable after I added some unsweetened almond milk. When I tried it with a unsweetened almond milk and a dash of sugar-free Italian Sweet Cream coffee creamer, I liked it even more; the vanilla flavor seemed to be slightly enhanced in both cases.

Iced, the French Vanilla blend was smooth and sweet enough that I could drink a cup without feeling like it needed any milk or creamer. The vanilla flavor wasn't as detectable as it was when this coffee was consumed hot, but it came out more clearly when I added unsweetened almond milk.

This is another Bones Coffee blend that I recommend to you wholly and without qualification.